Kind, constructive feedback on your writing
My mentee Catherine Cawley and I are up on the #WriteMentor Blog with this Q & A about our mentoring experience.
One of Catherine’s short stories will feature in the new issue of Paperbound which is another awesome and inclusive member of the #KidLit community – providing opportunities for children’s writers and illustrators to publish their work.
Feedback. On your precious writing. Also known as critique, constructive criticism, edits, thoughts, comments, disemboweling, soul crushing … I’m talking here about those written reports, emails, notes, track changes etc, which might be given by relatives, friends, critique partners, tutors, mentors, competition readers, agents, and editors, to you, on your full or partial manuscript.
Never mind that you asked these lovely people to review your manuscript for free; or paid them for advice; or have a contract that shows they already love the story – giving your work to someone else to read can be heart-shakingly hard. You may have spent three years getting this story up to scratch, and then a person reads it in less than a day and tells you lots of things they think are wrong with it. HOW you respond to feedback may vary depending on the WHO, but trust me, it’s going to involve emotional turmoil of some kind.
This is a blog I wrote back in August for the #WriteMentor Spark Programme. Another of Stuart White’s wonderful inclusive and encouraging iniatives, Spark is a good affordable way to get help with your writing and engage with the children’s writing and publishing community.
Alongside therapy, medication, and exercise, many people find writing can help to manage their mental health.
But there’s a catch: How do you write when depression means just getting out of bed is too hard? Or OCD has you stuck in a loop of some tedious behaviour? Or anxiety tells you that you’re not good enough, you’ll never be a writer, and sends your brain spiralling?
Having lived with chronic anxiety since childhood, plus depression and OCD on the side, in my experience life is always better when I’m writing. Any kind is good – non-fiction, journaling, memoir, poetry, therapeutic – but for me, fiction works best. Here, I offer some practical tips to help you keep writing on difficult days.
Continue reading “Writing with mental ill health”
Sunday morning run on the cycle track through woods.
May is a month that weeps green. Cow parsley and nettles reach my shoulders in places along the path. The smell of wild garlic shouts life, joy, hope, and mingles with the sleazy scent of hawthorn flowers.
This is a path I run often, through all the seasons, and I love it.
The very first short story I had published was born here, about eight years ago. Little Red Running Hood. I entered an online competition run by the wonderful, but sadly now defunct, Inktears. The story was commended and published on their website. I look at the story now with a critical eye, of course. Certainly, I didn’t understand the concept of killing darlings back then. 😁
Continue reading “Endurance Writing Part 2”